The public corruption charges against Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla and attorney/lobbyist Bill Riley Jr. revolve around the two political campaigns waged by the lawmaker’s baby brother, Renier Diaz de la Portilla: The 2020 race for county commission and a 2022 judicial contest. An arrest affidavit lays out the scheme as having begun […]
Renier Diaz de la Portilla loses second judicial bid, fourth race in a row Whew! We can all breathe easier now that we know Renier Diaz de la Portilla will not be a judge. Even for a day. Despite some very vicious and misleading (and possibly illegal) attacks against incumbent Miami-Dade County Judge Fred Seraphin […]
It’s time for Ladra to make her recommendations for this Aug. 23 ballot. There’s nothing any of the candidates can do at this point to change my mind and early voting has already started. Hell, more than 100,000 people have voted already (more on that later). Let’s start with the judicial races, because they are […]
Haitian leaders have denounced attack mailers attacking longtime Miami-Dade Judge Fred Seraphin, the first Haitian-American judge to be appointed in Miami-Dade, for spreading lies to mislead voters about his false arrest as a teenager. And attorney J.C. Planas filed a bar complaint against former School Board member and judicial candidate Renier Diaz de la Portilla, […]
He has not endorsed colleague Jorge Fors in the county commission race One would surely expect someone like Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo, a Trumpster sell-out who posts memes promoting the big lie on social media, to endorse someone like Renier Diaz de la Portilla, who has waged a race-baiting, false campaign against Miami-Dade County Judge […]
Former colleague says he used her in a hit piece without her knowledge Miami-Dade County judicial candidate Renier Diaz de la Portilla, a one-time state rep and two-time Miami-Dade School Board member, has not had the kind of legal career he had hoped for and was forced to resign from the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s office, […]
Judicial races are different, everybody says. They are more civil. They aren’t as vitriolic as state or county races in South Florida, where candidates are “communists” and investigations are exaggerated or made up altogether. Well, maybe they were different — before Renier Diaz de la Portilla decided to run against an incumbent non-Hispanic judge. Read […]
It’s not strange that a bunch of Republican candidates for this or that office, even non partisan county seats, were at the Christian Family Coalition’s 2022 Miami-Dade Legislative Victory & Candidates Breakfast last month, pandering for the ultra conservative vote. But a judicial candidate? Incumbent Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Oscar Rodriguez-Fonts took a few minutes to […]
UPDATE: The owner of CruisePort Destinations, a dba of America’s Gateway Inc., said that she was paid to pay her employees to canvass during the 2020 election because they were not working due to the COVID crisis. “It was really good because it helped my employees stay alive,” said Jeannette Pineiro. “During the pandemic, which […]
And Circuit Court Judge Robert Watson needs to publicly distance himself One of the things that judicial candidates can’t do, according to the very strict judicial rules in the state, is campaign or get too political. It’s canon number 7 in the Florida Supreme Court’s Judicial Code of Conduct: A Judge or Candidate for Judicial […]